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+<?xml version="1.0"?>
+<!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DocBook XML V4.2//EN"
+ "http://www.oasis-open.org/docbook/xml/4.2/docbookx.dtd" [
+<!ENTITY KEYWORD SYSTEM "includekeyword.c">
+<!ENTITY XPATH SYSTEM "includexpath.c">
+<!ENTITY STORY SYSTEM "includestory.xml">
+<!ENTITY ADDKEYWORD SYSTEM "includeaddkeyword.c">
+<!ENTITY ADDATTRIBUTE SYSTEM "includeaddattribute.c">
+<!ENTITY GETATTRIBUTE SYSTEM "includegetattribute.c">
+<!ENTITY CONVERT SYSTEM "includeconvert.c">
+]>
+<article lang="en">
+ <articleinfo>
+ <title>Libxml Tutorial</title>
+ <author>
+ <firstname>John</firstname>
+ <surname>Fleck</surname>
+ <email>jfleck@inkstain.net</email>
+ </author>
+ <copyright>
+ <year>2002, 2003</year>
+ <holder>John Fleck</holder>
+ </copyright>
+ <revhistory>
+ <revision>
+ <revnumber>1</revnumber>
+ <date>June 4, 2002</date>
+ <revremark>Initial draft</revremark>
+ </revision>
+ <revision>
+ <revnumber>2</revnumber>
+ <date>June 12, 2002</date>
+ <revremark>retrieving attribute value added</revremark>
+ </revision>
+ <revision>
+ <revnumber>3</revnumber>
+ <date>Aug. 31, 2002</date>
+ <revremark>freeing memory fix</revremark>
+ </revision>
+ <revision>
+ <revnumber>4</revnumber>
+ <date>Nov. 10, 2002</date>
+ <revremark>encoding discussion added</revremark>
+ </revision>
+ <revision>
+ <revnumber>5</revnumber>
+ <date>Dec. 15, 2002</date>
+ <revremark>more memory freeing changes</revremark>
+ </revision>
+ <revision>
+ <revnumber>6</revnumber>
+ <date>Jan. 26. 2003</date>
+ <revremark>add index</revremark>
+ </revision>
+ <revision>
+ <revnumber>7</revnumber>
+ <date>April 25, 2003</date>
+ <revremark>add compilation appendix</revremark>
+ </revision>
+ <revision>
+ <revnumber>8</revnumber>
+ <date>July 24, 2003</date>
+ <revremark>add XPath example</revremark>
+ </revision>
+ <revision>
+ <revnumber>9</revnumber>
+ <date>Feb. 14, 2004</date>
+ <revremark>Fix bug in XPath example</revremark>
+ </revision>
+ <revision>
+ <revnumber>7</revnumber>
+ <date>Aug. 24, 2004</date>
+ <revremark>Fix another bug in XPath example</revremark>
+ </revision>
+ </revhistory>
+ </articleinfo>
+ <abstract>
+ <para>Libxml is a freely licensed C language library for handling
+ <acronym>XML</acronym>, portable across a large number of platforms. This
+ tutorial provides examples of its basic functions.</para>
+ </abstract>
+ <sect1 id="introduction">
+ <title>Introduction</title>
+ <para>Libxml is a C language library implementing functions for reading,
+ creating and manipulating <acronym>XML</acronym> data. This tutorial
+ provides example code and explanations of its basic functionality.</para>
+ <para>Libxml and more details about its use are available on <ulink
+ url="http://www.xmlsoft.org/">the project home page</ulink>. Included there is complete <ulink url="http://xmlsoft.org/html/libxml-lib.html">
+ <acronym>API</acronym> documentation</ulink>. This tutorial is not meant
+ to substitute for that complete documentation, but to illustrate the
+ functions needed to use the library to perform basic operations.
+<!--
+ Links to
+ other resources can be found in <xref linkend="furtherresources" />.
+-->
+</para>
+ <para>The tutorial is based on a simple <acronym>XML</acronym> application I
+ use for articles I write. The format includes metadata and the body
+ of the article.</para>
+ <para>The example code in this tutorial demonstrates how to:
+ <itemizedlist>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>Parse the document.</para>
+ </listitem>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>Extract the text within a specified element.</para>
+ </listitem>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>Add an element and its content.</para>
+ </listitem>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>Add an attribute.</para>
+ </listitem>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>Extract the value of an attribute.</para>
+ </listitem>
+ </itemizedlist>
+ </para>
+ <para>Full code for the examples is included in the appendices.</para>
+
+ </sect1>
+
+ <sect1 id="xmltutorialdatatypes">
+ <title>Data Types</title>
+ <para><application>Libxml</application> declares a number of data types we
+ will encounter repeatedly, hiding the messy stuff so you do not have to deal
+ with it unless you have some specific need.</para>
+ <para>
+ <variablelist>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term><indexterm>
+ <primary>xmlChar</primary>
+ </indexterm>
+<ulink
+ url="http://xmlsoft.org/html/libxml-tree.html#XMLCHAR">xmlChar</ulink></term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>A basic replacement for char, a byte in a UTF-8 encoded
+ string. If your data uses another encoding, it must be converted to
+ UTF-8 for use with <application>libxml's</application>
+ functions. More information on encoding is available on the <ulink
+ url="http://www.xmlsoft.org/encoding.html"><application>libxml</application> encoding support web page</ulink>.</para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term><indexterm>
+ <primary>xmlDoc</primary>
+ </indexterm>
+ <ulink url="http://xmlsoft.org/html/libxml-tree.html#XMLDOC">xmlDoc</ulink></term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>A structure containing the tree created by a parsed doc. <ulink
+ url="http://xmlsoft.org/html/libxml-tree.html#XMLDOCPTR">xmlDocPtr</ulink>
+ is a pointer to the structure.</para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ <varlistentry>
+ <term><indexterm>
+ <primary>xmlNodePtr</primary>
+ </indexterm>
+<ulink
+ url="http://xmlsoft.org/html/libxml-tree.html#XMLNODEPTR">xmlNodePtr</ulink>
+ and <ulink url="http://xmlsoft.org/html/libxml-tree.html#XMLNODE">xmlNode</ulink></term>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>A structure containing a single node. <ulink
+ url="http://xmlsoft.org/html/libxml-tree.html#XMLNODEPTR">xmlNodePtr</ulink>
+ is a pointer to the structure, and is used in traversing the document tree.</para>
+ </listitem>
+ </varlistentry>
+ </variablelist>
+ </para>
+
+ </sect1>
+
+ <sect1 id="xmltutorialparsing">
+ <title>Parsing the file</title>
+ <para><indexterm id="fileparsing" class="startofrange">
+ <primary>file</primary>
+ <secondary>parsing</secondary>
+ </indexterm>
+Parsing the file requires only the name of the file and a single
+ function call, plus error checking. Full code: <xref
+ linkend="keywordappendix" /></para>
+ <para>
+ <programlisting>
+ <co id="declaredoc" /> xmlDocPtr doc;
+ <co id="declarenode" /> xmlNodePtr cur;
+
+ <co id="parsefile" /> doc = xmlParseFile(docname);
+
+ <co id="checkparseerror" /> if (doc == NULL ) {
+ fprintf(stderr,"Document not parsed successfully. \n");
+ return;
+ }
+
+ <co id="getrootelement" /> cur = xmlDocGetRootElement(doc);
+
+ <co id="checkemptyerror" /> if (cur == NULL) {
+ fprintf(stderr,"empty document\n");
+ xmlFreeDoc(doc);
+ return;
+ }
+
+ <co id="checkroottype" /> if (xmlStrcmp(cur->name, (const xmlChar *) "story")) {
+ fprintf(stderr,"document of the wrong type, root node != story");
+ xmlFreeDoc(doc);
+ return;
+ }
+
+ </programlisting>
+ <calloutlist>
+ <callout arearefs="declaredoc">
+ <para>Declare the pointer that will point to your parsed document.</para>
+ </callout>
+ <callout arearefs="declarenode">
+ <para>Declare a node pointer (you'll need this in order to
+ interact with individual nodes).</para>
+ </callout>
+ <callout arearefs="checkparseerror">
+ <para>Check to see that the document was successfully parsed. If it
+ was not, <application>libxml</application> will at this point
+ register an error and stop.
+ <note>
+ <para><indexterm>
+ <primary>encoding</primary>
+ </indexterm>
+One common example of an error at this point is improper
+ handling of encoding. The <acronym>XML</acronym> standard requires
+ documents stored with an encoding other than UTF-8 or UTF-16 to
+ contain an explicit declaration of their encoding. If the
+ declaration is there, <application>libxml</application> will
+ automatically perform the necessary conversion to UTF-8 for
+ you. More information on <acronym>XML's</acronym> encoding
+ requirements is contained in the <ulink
+ url="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml#charencoding">standard</ulink>.</para>
+ </note>
+ </para>
+ </callout>
+ <callout arearefs="getrootelement">
+ <para>Retrieve the document's root element.</para>
+ </callout>
+ <callout arearefs="checkemptyerror">
+ <para>Check to make sure the document actually contains something.</para>
+ </callout>
+ <callout arearefs="checkroottype">
+ <para>In our case, we need to make sure the document is the right
+ type. &quot;story&quot; is the root type of the documents used in this
+ tutorial.</para>
+ </callout>
+ </calloutlist>
+ <indexterm startref="fileparsing" class="endofrange" />
+ </para>
+ </sect1>
+
+ <sect1 id="xmltutorialgettext">
+ <title>Retrieving Element Content</title>
+ <para><indexterm>
+ <primary>element</primary>
+ <secondary>retrieving content</secondary>
+ </indexterm>
+Retrieving the content of an element involves traversing the document
+ tree until you find what you are looking for. In this case, we are looking
+ for an element called &quot;keyword&quot; contained within element called &quot;story&quot;. The
+ process to find the node we are interested in involves tediously walking the
+ tree. We assume you already have an xmlDocPtr called <varname>doc</varname>
+ and an xmlNodPtr called <varname>cur</varname>.</para>
+
+ <para>
+ <programlisting>
+ <co id="getchildnode" />cur = cur->xmlChildrenNode;
+ <co id="huntstoryinfo" />while (cur != NULL) {
+ if ((!xmlStrcmp(cur->name, (const xmlChar *)"storyinfo"))){
+ parseStory (doc, cur);
+ }
+
+ cur = cur->next;
+ }
+ </programlisting>
+
+ <calloutlist>
+ <callout arearefs="getchildnode">
+ <para>Get the first child node of <varname>cur</varname>. At this
+ point, <varname>cur</varname> points at the document root, which is
+ the element &quot;story&quot;.</para>
+ </callout>
+ <callout arearefs="huntstoryinfo">
+ <para>This loop iterates through the elements that are children of
+ &quot;story&quot;, looking for one called &quot;storyinfo&quot;. That
+ is the element that will contain the &quot;keywords&quot; we are
+ looking for. It uses the <application>libxml</application> string
+ comparison
+ function, <function><ulink
+ url="http://xmlsoft.org/html/libxml-parser.html#XMLSTRCMP">xmlStrcmp</ulink></function>. If there is a match, it calls the function <function>parseStory</function>.</para>
+ </callout>
+ </calloutlist>
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ <programlisting>
+void
+parseStory (xmlDocPtr doc, xmlNodePtr cur) {
+
+ xmlChar *key;
+ <co id="anothergetchild" /> cur = cur->xmlChildrenNode;
+ <co id="findkeyword" /> while (cur != NULL) {
+ if ((!xmlStrcmp(cur->name, (const xmlChar *)"keyword"))) {
+ <co id="foundkeyword" /> key = xmlNodeListGetString(doc, cur->xmlChildrenNode, 1);
+ printf("keyword: %s\n", key);
+ xmlFree(key);
+ }
+ cur = cur->next;
+ }
+ return;
+}
+ </programlisting>
+ <calloutlist>
+ <callout arearefs="anothergetchild">
+ <para>Again we get the first child node.</para>
+ </callout>
+ <callout arearefs="findkeyword">
+ <para>Like the loop above, we then iterate through the nodes, looking
+ for one that matches the element we're interested in, in this case
+ &quot;keyword&quot;.</para>
+ </callout>
+ <callout arearefs="foundkeyword">
+ <para>When we find the &quot;keyword&quot; element, we need to print
+ its contents. Remember that in <acronym>XML</acronym>, the text
+ contained within an element is a child node of that element, so we
+ turn to <varname>cur-&gt;xmlChildrenNode</varname>. To retrieve it, we
+ use the function <function><ulink
+ url="http://xmlsoft.org/html/libxml-tree.html#XMLNODELISTGETSTRING">xmlNodeListGetString</ulink></function>, which also takes the <varname>doc</varname> pointer as an argument. In this case, we just print it out.</para>
+ <note>
+ <para>Because <function>xmlNodeListGetString</function> allocates
+ memory for the string it returns, you must use
+ <function>xmlFree</function> to free it.</para>
+ </note>
+ </callout>
+ </calloutlist>
+ </para>
+
+ </sect1>
+ <sect1 id="xmltutorialxpath">
+ <title>Using XPath to Retrieve Element Content</title>
+ <para>In addition to walking the document tree to find an element,
+ <application>Libxml2</application> includes support for
+ use of <application>XPath</application> expressions to retrieve sets of
+ nodes that match a specified criteria. Full documentation of the
+ <application>XPath</application> <acronym>API</acronym> is <ulink
+ url="http://xmlsoft.org/html/libxml-xpath.html">here</ulink>.
+ </para>
+ <para><application>XPath</application> allows searching through a document
+ for nodes that match specified criteria. In the example below we search
+ through a document for the contents of all <varname>keyword</varname>
+ elements.
+ <note>
+ <para>A full discussion of <application>XPath</application> is beyond
+ the scope of this document. For details on its use, see the <ulink
+ url="http://www.w3.org/TR/xpath">XPath specification</ulink>.</para>
+ </note>
+ Full code for this example is at <xref linkend="xpathappendix" />.
+ </para>
+ <para>Using <application>XPath</application> requires setting up an
+ xmlXPathContext and then supplying the <application>XPath</application>
+ expression and the context to the
+ <function>xmlXPathEvalExpression</function> function. The function returns
+ an xmlXPathObjectPtr, which includes the set of nodes satisfying the
+ <application>XPath</application> expression.</para>
+ <para>
+ <programlisting>
+ xmlXPathObjectPtr
+ getnodeset (xmlDocPtr doc, xmlChar *xpath){
+
+ <co id="cocontext" />xmlXPathContextPtr context;
+ xmlXPathObjectPtr result;
+
+ <co id="cocreatecontext" />context = xmlXPathNewContext(doc);
+ <co id="corunxpath" />result = xmlXPathEvalExpression(xpath, context);
+ <co id="cocheckxpathresult" />if(xmlXPathNodeSetIsEmpty(result->nodesetval)){
+ xmlXPathFreeObject(result);
+ printf("No result\n");
+ return NULL;
+ </programlisting>
+ <calloutlist>
+ <callout arearefs="cocontext">
+ <para>First we declare our variables.</para>
+ </callout>
+ <callout arearefs="cocreatecontext">
+ <para>Initialize the <varname>context</varname> variable.</para>
+ </callout>
+ <callout arearefs="corunxpath">
+ <para>Apply the <application>XPath</application> expression.</para>
+ </callout>
+ <callout arearefs="cocheckxpathresult">
+ <para>Check the result and free the memory allocated to
+ <varname>result</varname> if no result is found.</para>
+ </callout>
+ </calloutlist>
+ </para>
+ <para>The xmlPathObjectPtr returned by the function contains a set of nodes
+ and other information needed to iterate through the set and act on the
+ results. For this example, our functions returns the
+ <varname>xmlXPathObjectPtr</varname>. We use it to print the contents of
+ <varname>keyword</varname> nodes in our document. The node set object
+ includes the number of elements in the set (<varname>nodeNr</varname>) and
+ an array of nodes (<varname>nodeTab</varname>):
+ <programlisting>
+ <co id="conodesetcounter" />for (i=0; i &lt; nodeset->nodeNr; i++) {
+ <co id="coprintkeywords" />keyword = xmlNodeListGetString(doc, nodeset->nodeTab[i]->xmlChildrenNode, 1);
+ printf("keyword: %s\n", keyword);
+ xmlFree(keyword);
+ }
+ </programlisting>
+ <calloutlist>
+ <callout arearefs="conodesetcounter">
+ <para>The value of <varname>nodeset->Nr</varname> holds the number of
+ elements in the node set. Here we use it to iterate through the array.</para>
+ </callout>
+ <callout arearefs="coprintkeywords">
+ <para>Here we print the contents of each of the nodes returned.
+ <note>
+ <para>Note that we are printing the child node of the node that is
+ returned, because the contents of the <varname>keyword</varname>
+ element are a child text node.</para>
+ </note>
+ </para>
+ </callout>
+ </calloutlist>
+ </para>
+ </sect1>
+<sect1 id="xmltutorialwritingcontent">
+ <title>Writing element content</title>
+ <para><indexterm>
+ <primary>element</primary>
+ <secondary>writing content</secondary>
+ </indexterm>
+ Writing element content uses many of the same steps we used above
+ &mdash; parsing the document and walking the tree. We parse the document,
+ then traverse the tree to find the place we want to insert our element. For
+ this example, we want to again find the &quot;storyinfo&quot; element and
+ this time insert a keyword. Then we'll write the file to disk. Full code:
+ <xref linkend="addkeywordappendix" /></para>
+ <para>
+ The main difference in this example is in
+ <function>parseStory</function>:
+
+ <programlisting>
+void
+parseStory (xmlDocPtr doc, xmlNodePtr cur, char *keyword) {
+
+ <co id="addkeyword" /> xmlNewTextChild (cur, NULL, "keyword", keyword);
+ return;
+}
+ </programlisting>
+ <calloutlist>
+ <callout arearefs="addkeyword">
+ <para>The <function><ulink
+ url="http://xmlsoft.org/html/libxml-tree.html#XMLNEWTEXTCHILD">xmlNewTextChild</ulink></function>
+ function adds a new child element at the
+ current node pointer's location in the
+ tree, specified by <varname>cur</varname>.</para>
+ </callout>
+ </calloutlist>
+ </para>
+
+ <para>
+ <indexterm>
+ <primary>file</primary>
+ <secondary>saving</secondary>
+ </indexterm>
+ Once the node has been added, we would like to write the document to
+ file. Is you want the element to have a namespace, you can add it here as
+ well. In our case, the namespace is NULL.
+ <programlisting>
+ xmlSaveFormatFile (docname, doc, 1);
+ </programlisting>
+ The first parameter is the name of the file to be written. You'll notice
+ it is the same as the file we just read. In this case, we just write over
+ the old file. The second parameter is a pointer to the xmlDoc
+ structure. Setting the third parameter equal to one ensures indenting on output.
+ </para>
+ </sect1>
+
+ <sect1 id="xmltutorialwritingattribute">
+ <title>Writing Attribute</title>
+ <para><indexterm>
+ <primary>attribute</primary>
+ <secondary>writing</secondary>
+ </indexterm>
+Writing an attribute is similar to writing text to a new element. In
+ this case, we'll add a reference <acronym>URI</acronym> to our
+ document. Full code:<xref linkend="addattributeappendix" />.</para>
+ <para>
+ A <sgmltag>reference</sgmltag> is a child of the <sgmltag>story</sgmltag>
+ element, so finding the place to put our new element and attribute is
+ simple. As soon as we do the error-checking test in our
+ <function>parseDoc</function>, we are in the right spot to add our
+ element. But before we do that, we need to make a declaration using a
+ data type we have not seen yet:
+ <programlisting>
+ xmlAttrPtr newattr;
+ </programlisting>
+ We also need an extra xmlNodePtr:
+ <programlisting>
+ xmlNodePtr newnode;
+ </programlisting>
+ </para>
+ <para>
+ The rest of <function>parseDoc</function> is the same as before until we
+ check to see if our root element is <sgmltag>story</sgmltag>. If it is,
+ then we know we are at the right spot to add our element:
+
+ <programlisting>
+ <co id="addreferencenode" /> newnode = xmlNewTextChild (cur, NULL, "reference", NULL);
+ <co id="addattributenode" /> newattr = xmlNewProp (newnode, "uri", uri);
+ </programlisting>
+ <calloutlist>
+ <callout arearefs="addreferencenode">
+ <para>First we add a new node at the location of the current node
+ pointer, <varname>cur.</varname> using the <ulink
+ url="http://xmlsoft.org/html/libxml-tree.html#XMLNEWTEXTCHILD">xmlNewTextChild</ulink> function.</para>
+ </callout>
+ </calloutlist>
+ </para>
+
+ <para>Once the node is added, the file is written to disk just as in the
+ previous example in which we added an element with text content.</para>
+
+ </sect1>
+
+ <sect1 id="xmltutorialattribute">
+ <title>Retrieving Attributes</title>
+ <para><indexterm>
+ <primary>attribute</primary>
+ <secondary>retrieving value</secondary>
+ </indexterm>
+Retrieving the value of an attribute is similar to the previous
+ example in which we retrieved a node's text contents. In this case we'll
+ extract the value of the <acronym>URI</acronym> we added in the previous
+ section. Full code: <xref linkend="getattributeappendix" />.</para>
+ <para>
+ The initial steps for this example are similar to the previous ones: parse
+ the doc, find the element you are interested in, then enter a function to
+ carry out the specific task required. In this case, we call
+ <function>getReference</function>:
+ <programlisting>
+void
+getReference (xmlDocPtr doc, xmlNodePtr cur) {
+
+ xmlChar *uri;
+ cur = cur->xmlChildrenNode;
+ while (cur != NULL) {
+ if ((!xmlStrcmp(cur->name, (const xmlChar *)"reference"))) {
+ <co id="getattributevalue" /> uri = xmlGetProp(cur, "uri");
+ printf("uri: %s\n", uri);
+ xmlFree(uri);
+ }
+ cur = cur->next;
+ }
+ return;
+}
+ </programlisting>
+
+ <calloutlist>
+ <callout arearefs="getattributevalue">
+ <para>
+ The key function is <function><ulink
+ url="http://xmlsoft.org/html/libxml-tree.html#XMLGETPROP">xmlGetProp</ulink></function>, which returns an
+ <varname>xmlChar</varname> containing the attribute's value. In this case,
+ we just print it out.
+ <note>
+ <para>
+ If you are using a <acronym>DTD</acronym> that declares a fixed or
+ default value for the attribute, this function will retrieve it.
+ </para>
+ </note>
+ </para>
+ </callout>
+ </calloutlist>
+
+ </para>
+ </sect1>
+
+ <sect1 id="xmltutorialconvert">
+ <title>Encoding Conversion</title>
+
+ <para><indexterm>
+ <primary>encoding</primary>
+ </indexterm>
+Data encoding compatibility problems are one of the most common
+ difficulties encountered by programmers new to <acronym>XML</acronym> in
+ general and <application>libxml</application> in particular. Thinking
+ through the design of your application in light of this issue will help
+ avoid difficulties later. Internally, <application>libxml</application>
+ stores and manipulates data in the UTF-8 format. Data used by your program
+ in other formats, such as the commonly used ISO-8859-1 encoding, must be
+ converted to UTF-8 before passing it to <application>libxml</application>
+ functions. If you want your program's output in an encoding other than
+ UTF-8, you also must convert it.</para>
+
+ <para><application>Libxml</application> uses
+ <application>iconv</application> if it is available to convert
+ data. Without <application>iconv</application>, only UTF-8, UTF-16 and
+ ISO-8859-1 can be used as external formats. With
+ <application>iconv</application>, any format can be used provided
+ <application>iconv</application> is able to convert it to and from
+ UTF-8. Currently <application>iconv</application> supports about 150
+ different character formats with ability to convert from any to any. While
+ the actual number of supported formats varies between implementations, every
+ <application>iconv</application> implementation is almost guaranteed to
+ support every format anyone has ever heard of.</para>
+
+ <warning>
+ <para>A common mistake is to use different formats for the internal data
+ in different parts of one's code. The most common case is an application
+ that assumes ISO-8859-1 to be the internal data format, combined with
+ <application>libxml</application>, which assumes UTF-8 to be the
+ internal data format. The result is an application that treats internal
+ data differently, depending on which code section is executing. The one or
+ the other part of code will then, naturally, misinterpret the data.
+ </para>
+ </warning>
+
+ <para>This example constructs a simple document, then adds content provided
+ at the command line to the document's root element and outputs the results
+ to <filename>stdout</filename> in the proper encoding. For this example, we
+ use ISO-8859-1 encoding. The encoding of the string input at the command
+ line is converted from ISO-8859-1 to UTF-8. Full code: <xref
+ linkend="convertappendix" /></para>
+
+ <para>The conversion, encapsulated in the example code in the
+ <function>convert</function> function, uses
+ <application>libxml's</application>
+ <function>xmlFindCharEncodingHandler</function> function:
+ <programlisting>
+ <co id="handlerdatatype" />xmlCharEncodingHandlerPtr handler;
+ <co id="calcsize" />size = (int)strlen(in)+1;
+ out_size = size*2-1;
+ out = malloc((size_t)out_size);
+
+&hellip;
+ <co id="findhandlerfunction" />handler = xmlFindCharEncodingHandler(encoding);
+&hellip;
+ <co id="callconversionfunction" />handler->input(out, &amp;out_size, in, &amp;temp);
+&hellip;
+ <co id="outputencoding" />xmlSaveFormatFileEnc("-", doc, encoding, 1);
+ </programlisting>
+ <calloutlist>
+ <callout arearefs="handlerdatatype">
+ <para><varname>handler</varname> is declared as a pointer to an
+ <function>xmlCharEncodingHandler</function> function.</para>
+ </callout>
+ <callout arearefs="calcsize">
+ <para>The <function>xmlCharEncodingHandler</function> function needs
+ to be given the size of the input and output strings, which are
+ calculated here for strings <varname>in</varname> and
+ <varname>out</varname>.</para>
+ </callout>
+ <callout arearefs="findhandlerfunction">
+ <para><function>xmlFindCharEncodingHandler</function> takes as its
+ argument the data's initial encoding and searches
+ <application>libxml's</application> built-in set of conversion
+ handlers, returning a pointer to the function or NULL if none is
+ found.</para>
+ </callout>
+ <callout arearefs="callconversionfunction">
+ <para>The conversion function identified by <varname>handler</varname>
+ requires as its arguments pointers to the input and output strings,
+ along with the length of each. The lengths must be determined
+ separately by the application.</para>
+ </callout>
+ <callout arearefs="outputencoding">
+ <para>To output in a specified encoding rather than UTF-8, we use
+ <function>xmlSaveFormatFileEnc</function>, specifying the
+ encoding.</para>
+ </callout>
+ </calloutlist>
+ </para>
+ </sect1>
+
+ <appendix id="compilation">
+ <title>Compilation</title>
+ <para><indexterm>
+ <primary>compiler flags</primary>
+ </indexterm>
+ <application>Libxml</application> includes a script,
+ <application>xml2-config</application>, that can be used to generate
+ flags for compilation and linking of programs written with the
+ library. For pre-processor and compiler flags, use <command>xml2-config
+ --cflags</command>. For library linking flags, use <command>xml2-config
+ --libs</command>. Other options are available using <command>xml2-config
+ --help</command>.</para>
+ </appendix>
+
+ <appendix id="sampledoc">
+ <title>Sample Document</title>
+ <programlisting>&STORY;</programlisting>
+ </appendix>
+ <appendix id="keywordappendix">
+ <title>Code for Keyword Example</title>
+ <para>
+ <programlisting>&KEYWORD;</programlisting>
+ </para>
+ </appendix>
+ <appendix id="xpathappendix">
+ <title>Code for XPath Example</title>
+ <para>
+ <programlisting>&XPATH;</programlisting>
+ </para>
+ </appendix>
+<appendix id="addkeywordappendix">
+ <title>Code for Add Keyword Example</title>
+ <para>
+ <programlisting>&ADDKEYWORD;</programlisting>
+ </para>
+ </appendix>
+<appendix id="addattributeappendix">
+ <title>Code for Add Attribute Example</title>
+ <para>
+ <programlisting>&ADDATTRIBUTE;</programlisting>
+ </para>
+ </appendix>
+<appendix id="getattributeappendix">
+ <title>Code for Retrieving Attribute Value Example</title>
+ <para>
+ <programlisting>&GETATTRIBUTE;</programlisting>
+ </para>
+ </appendix>
+ <appendix id="convertappendix">
+ <title>Code for Encoding Conversion Example</title>
+ <para>
+ <programlisting>&CONVERT;</programlisting>
+ </para>
+ </appendix>
+ <appendix>
+ <title>Acknowledgements</title>
+ <para>A number of people have generously offered feedback, code and
+ suggested improvements to this tutorial. In no particular order:
+ <simplelist type="inline">
+ <member>Daniel Veillard</member>
+ <member>Marcus Labib Iskander</member>
+ <member>Christopher R. Harris</member>
+ <member>Igor Zlatkovic</member>
+ <member>Niraj Tolia</member>
+ <member>David Turover</member>
+ </simplelist>
+ </para>
+ </appendix>
+ <index />
+</article>